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This was an especially egregious case to me because not only is Marquette trying to stunt free speech of professors in its university – a place where ideas should flow freely, Marquette also betrays its catholic identity. Marquette rallied behind a grad school instructor who basically told an undergrad student who disagreed with her view that “everybody agrees” on “gay rights” that his comments would not be tolerated under the pretext that said comments were homophobic. I encourage anyone who is interested to read the particulars of this incident and read the court opinion. not only did the high court reverse the lower court ruling but it found in favor of Professor McAdams by finding specifically that Marquette had violated Professor McAdam’s contractual rights. That is huge. By the way, Marquette is still whining and defending its conduct. Read more here.

California had passed a law trying to force pregnancy centers to advertise(post notices) advertising abortion. Other states were following suit, i.e. New Jersey. “The Court found that requiring such centers to post notices advertising abortion violates their First Amendment Free Speech rights. This is a very good result. However, few commentators have mentioned that the NIFLA ruling impacts attempts to ban so-called “conversion therapy.”

Laws which ban sexual orientation change efforts (“SOCE” for short) have increasingly entered the national conversation, most recently in California. Before California’s recent attempts to ban all forms of SOCE at any age, California already had such a law in place for minors. The law considered it “unprofessional conduct” to “seek to change sexual orientation” for a minor. Any counselor who violated the law faced professional discipline.
California’s more recent SOCE laws take an even more extreme position. These laws ban all therapy that aims to change, or even reduce, sexual attraction to the same sex. Therefore, a patient who wants SOCE therapy cannot receive that service without risk to the professional counselor.

Justice Thomas, writing for the court, seized the opportunity in this case to provide protections for professionals and by implication, those who seek out care from professionals…

“Professionals might have a host of good-faith disagreements, both with each other and with the government, on many topics in their respective fields.” He identifies doctors and nurses who disagree on the prevailing opinions on assisted suicide or medical marijuana as examples of good faith disagreements. So too are lawyers and marriage counselors who disagree on prenuptial agreements and divorces, and bankers and accountants who disagree on how to commit money to savings or tax reform. One would have to conclude that Justice Thomas’ intent is to protect all professionals from being regulated on matters of good faith disagreement.

This is a significant victory for free speech, and not only for pregnancy care centers. The “social justice” movement threatens many professionals in the exercise of their judgement and expertise. This Supreme Court ruling has created broad protections for a significant number of Americans who hold professional licenses. In doing so, the Court also reopened the seemingly settled question as to whether SOCE bans are constitutional. This is a welcome surprise from a case originally thought to be limited only to pregnancy centers.